Healthcare IT · Staffing and workforce scheduling
Bemlo
A Stockholm platform that started as a marketplace matching nurses and doctors with short term shifts, then bought a competitor to become an AI scheduling tool for hospitals and clinics themselves. It has raised a reported $3.3 million and runs at a loss, according to its own filed accounts.
From gig marketplace to scheduling software
In the summer of 2022, Bemlo described itself to reporters as a marketplace for short term staffing of nurses and doctors. Healthcare professionals used it to search, compare and apply for shifts. Staffing agencies and care providers paid to list openings. That is the pitch the company brought to Y Combinator and to a run of European tech outlets that summer.
By 2024, the pitch had changed. Bemlo's own site now describes an AI driven scheduling platform sold to healthcare organizations directly: automated shift plans that balance care needs against staff preferences, staffing pools shared across units, and a tool for escalating unfilled shifts to procured staffing agencies. The jobs marketplace is still live at bemlo.se, listing which staffing companies are procured by which Swedish region, but the product the company leads with now is software for the employer's own scheduling desk, not a jobs board for individual clinicians.
The shift lines up with an acquisition. In February 2024, Bemlo bought Vivium, a Stockholm based competitor building staff planning software for healthcare, with operations in Sweden and Norway. Vivium's tools, not the original marketplace, appear to be what now sits behind Bemlo's AI scheduling pitch.
The problem it points at
Healthcare staffing across the Nordics and the UK has run short handed for years, and the standard fix, hiring through an external staffing agency on short notice, is slow and expensive. Reporters covering the 2022 round put the typical lead time to fill a healthcare vacancy at up to three months. Bemlo's pitch, then and now, is to compress that: match open shifts to available staff faster, and reduce how much falls to costly external agencies in the first place.
Sweden's regions run formal procurement for external staffing agencies, and Bemlo's marketplace lists which agencies are procured region by region, a narrower problem than the pan European labor shortage story told to investors in 2022.
A founding team named differently by different sources
No two accounts of Bemlo's founding fully agree. Y Combinator and the company say it started in 2021. Several funding trackers, including the trade press covering the 2022 round, date it to 2020, and Sweden's own company register shows the legal entity, Bemalong AB, incorporated on June 24, 2020. The founder list varies too: press coverage from the 2022 round names Alexander Bjorkenstam, Alfred Wahlforss, Benjamin Waye, Edvin Fernqvist and Frithiof Ekstrom in different combinations, sometimes three of the five, sometimes four, sometimes all five.
What the record agrees on: Benjamin Waye was CEO and co-founder at the 2022 seed round, and Alexander Bjorkenstam, also a co-founder, held the CEO title by the February 2024 Vivium acquisition and still holds it, plus the board chair, per Sweden's company register. No CEO change announcement has turned up in this research.
Seed round, then a quiet acquisition
Bemlo closed a $3.3 million seed round in August 2022, backed by Y Combinator, Long Journey Ventures, Uncommon Capital and a group of angels that included Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi, BloomTech co-founder Austen Allred and executives from the Swedish digital health company Kry. The company says it had grown more than 20 percent month on month in the first half of that year and had already opened operations in Norway and the UK alongside its home market.
Eighteen months later, in February 2024, Bemlo announced it had completed the acquisition of Vivium, taking full ownership from Vivium's prior owners, named as an entity called Hidden Dreams plus Vivium's CEO, COO and CPO. No price was disclosed.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Company accounts | Bemalong AB reported net sales of 1.57 million SEK in 2021, 6.86 million in 2022, 4.13 million in 2023, 5.31 million in 2024 and 5.96 million in 2025, with a loss every year, widening to a 15.5 million SEK loss after financial items in 2023 before narrowing to 4.4 million in 2025. | Public record |
| Auditor remarks | Sweden's company register flags the 2024 accounts for irregular payment of taxes or fees, and the 2025 accounts for what it labels other serious auditor comments. | Public record |
| Founding year | 2021 per Y Combinator and the company. 2020 per most funding trackers and press coverage of the seed round. The legal entity was registered June 24, 2020. | Differs across sources |
| Headcount | 7 employees per Sweden's company register (most recent filing). Data aggregators show a wider range: 11 to 50 (DHRMap), 17 (PitchBook), 18 as of May 2026 (Tracxn). | Differs across sources |
| Total funding raised | $3.3 million seed round is independently reported by multiple outlets. One aggregator lists total funding of $3.78 to $3.83 million across two earlier, smaller rounds plus the seed, including a $34,000 accelerator investment in 2020. No figure beyond the 2022 seed has been announced by the company. | Public record |
| Vivium acquisition | Announced complete by Bemlo on February 20, 2024, with named prior owners. No financial terms disclosed. | Company-stated |
| Customer base | Company says it works with public and private healthcare organizations across Sweden, Norway and the UK. No named hospital or region customer for the scheduling software has been found. | Company-stated |
Read plainly: the seed round and the Vivium acquisition are both confirmed by more than one source. The revenue and loss figures come straight from Bemalong AB's own filed accounts, and they show a small, unprofitable business that grew, shrank, then grew again over five years, with two separate accounting years flagged for issues by an auditor. No public record ties a Swedish region, hospital or named staffing agreement to Bemlo's current AI scheduling product.
What to watch
- Whether the 2025 auditor comment gets resolved or repeated in the 2026 accounts.
- Any new funding round. None has been announced since the 2022 seed and the undisclosed Vivium deal.
- Named hospital, clinic or region customers for the post Vivium scheduling product.
- Whether the UK and Norway operations described in 2022 are still active.
In their words
“By providing a marketplace for short-term positions, we can match the right healthcare professionals with available short-term positions and address the current workforce shortage in healthcare. We are very proud to bring in top investors that share our vision of improving transparency and increasing efficiency within healthcare.”
Benjamin Waye, CEO and co-founder, August 2022 funding announcement · Company-stated
“Today, tens of thousands of nurses and doctors use Bemlo to search, find and compare different short-term positions in healthcare. We have been able to lower the thresholds and increase transparency within the industry, which allows for more informative decision-making.”
Benjamin Waye, CEO and co-founder, August 2022 funding announcement · Company-stated
“Healthcare professionals have long sought a transparent solution for sharing their own work experience at different employers with peers. Reviews and transparency haven´t been widely available in this space, until now.”
Benjamin Waye, CEO and co-founder, quoted in TechCrunch, July 29, 2022 · Independent
“I’m impressed by what the team at Bemlo have accomplished in a short period of time and look forward to following their journey to better the work lives of healthcare workers in more European markets.”
Lee Jacobs, founder and general partner, Long Journey Ventures, August 2022 · Investor
“As we begin this new journey, merging Vivium’s technology into our platform marks a big step forward in addressing the critical staffing shortages in healthcare. We’re excited to have Vivium join the Bemlo team, and together, we’ll keep making healthcare workforce management better and help healthcare facilities to increase the workforce retention.”
Alexander Bjorkenstam, CEO and co-founder, February 2024 acquisition announcement · Company-stated
“Joining forces with Bemlo opens exciting avenues for us to enhance the staffing experience in healthcare facilities. We are eager to contribute to Bemlo’s vision and leverage our combined strengths to foster growth and innovation in the sector.”
Peter Westerholm, CEO, Vivium, February 2024 acquisition announcement · Partner-stated
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordBemalong AB, org.nr 559260-6718, company filings and key figures
- Public recordBemalong AB company overview, registration date and management
- IndependentBemlo: AI-native scheduling and workforce management platform for healthcare
- IndependentHow the problem of hiring healthcare staff has become a fertile ground for startups
- IndependentStockholm-based Bemlo bags over €3.2 million to tackle the European healthcare labour shortage
- IndependentBemlo gets $3.3 million dosage to solve healthcare labour shortage in Europe
- IndependentSwedish healthcare staffing platform collects $3.3M seed to provide recruitment for healthcare professionals
- IndependentY Combinator alumnus Bemlo scoops $3.3M to help doctors and nurses find jobs easily
- IndependentVårdplattformen Bemlo tar in miljoner från ängelinvesterare
- IndependentBemlo to raise $3.3M in a seed round, funding brief
- IndependentBemlo acquires its Stockholm-based competitor Vivium, deal brief
- IndependentBemlo 2026 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding and Investors
- IndependentVivium (Sweden) 2026 Company Profile: Valuation, Investors, Acquisition
- IndependentBemlo 2026 Company Profile, Team, Funding and Competitors
- IndependentBemlo Company Profile
- IndependentBemlo Funding, company data summary
- CompanyBemlo completes acquisition of Vivium
- CompanyBemlo homepage, product description
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
